1 Sunset and ev'ning star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning bar
When I put out to sea,
And may there be no moaning bar
When I put out to sea.
2 Twilight and ev'ning bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sad farewell
When I at last embark,
And may there be no sad farewell
When I at last embark.
3 For tho' from time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot's face
When I have crossed the bar,
I hope to see my Pilot's face
When I have crossed the bar.
Source: The Christian Hymnary. Bks. 1-4 #975
First Line: | Sunset and evening star |
Title: | Crossing the Bar |
Author: | Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson (1889) |
Meter: | Irregular |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
Sunset and evening star. Alfred Lord Tennyson. [Death and Burial.] In Lord Tennyson's Memoir of his father, vol. ii,, p. 366, he gives this account of the writing of this hymn:—
"'Crossing the Bar,' was written in my father's eighty-first year, on a day in October [1889] when we came from Aldworth to Farringford. Before reaching Farringford he had the moaning of the bay in his mind, and after dinner he showed me this poem written out. I said, 'That is the crown of your life's work.' He answered, 'It came in a moment.' He explained the 'Pilot' as ‘That Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us.’ ... A few days before my father's death [1892] he said to me, 'Mind you put "Crossing the Bar" at the end of all editions of my poems.' ... My father considered Edmund Lushington's translation into Greek of 'Crossing the Bar' one of the finest translations he had ever read."
This translation into Greek is given in the Memoir. The hymn was first published in Lord Tennyson's Demeter and other Poems, 1889, p. 174.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)